4.02.2008

Arabian Wildlife Center


Today, Kaleigh's class had a fieldtrip to the Arabian Wildlife Center in Sharjah. Sharjah is an emirate just to the east of Dubai and it's the third largest emirate in the UAE. Lisa was a parent assistant on the trip, along with a Dubai American Academy graduate who is now going to school in the UK. Ashlyn was invited to come along for the day as well, which was really fantastic. Lisa's group of students for the trip turned out to be Kaleigh's best friends in the class - Noor, Arub, Madison...and Ashlyn. No coincidence there! Lisa asked the five girls what they wanted to call their group and they said the Guinea Pigs. Surprised? I think not.

It took us about 1.5 hours to arrive at the Wildlife Center and the kids excitedly walked/ran from exhibit to exhibit...checking out reptiles and rodents, birds and nocturnal animals. We also saw cheetahs, leopards, baboons, and some other large creatures. With the extremely hot temperatures here for part of the year, it is a completely enclosed Center. The very small animals are in their typical glass exhibits, while the larger animals are outside. So, the larger animals are actually looking in at people through the glass!

Favorite animals from the Guinea Pig group were the baby hedgehog, white mice, a jumping mouse, gerbils, and the desert cats. Ask girls and you will get girl answers.

After lunch we headed over to the Sharjah Natural History museum. We didn't have much time left, so we breezed through the exhibits until the kids settled on a volcano film and an area dedicated to outer space. Attention spans were pretty much nonexistent at this point!

The bus trip back to Dubai American Academy was peppered with sleeping children and talk of bats, dinosaurs, and baby animals. Kaleigh didn't get to look at all of the exhibits due to time constraints, so we plan to take Dwayne with us next time we go and let her show us around!



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